Trade agreements

In October 2015, the European Commission presented its 'trade for all’ strategy. This strategy is implemented through various trade negotiations. For 2018 this involves the following negotiations:
• finalizing agreements with Japan, Singapore and Vietnam;
• technical elaboration of the political agreement with Mexico;
• finalizing the negotiations with Mercosur;
• more intensive negotiations with Chile, China and Indonesia;
• start the negotiations with Australia and New Zealand.

The Flemish economy is in a strong competitive position due to internationalization, and is therefore closely following the negotiations on European trade agreements. The Flemish trade and investment strategy defines the Flemish interests and objectives in the European trade and investment policy and determines the instruments with which Flanders wishes to influence this policy. Flanders supports an open and sustainable economy and wants to give priority to agreements with countries that want to trade with the same conviction. Europe must therefore strive for ambitious goals and show that everyone can win at trade agreements. For each negotiation, a separate memorandum is drawn up in which the Flemish interests are defined.